


Lights Behind Your Eyes

by tearstrung



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Great Depression, Ice Cream Parlors, M/M, Mentions of stuttering, Speech Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 11:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9438770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tearstrung/pseuds/tearstrung
Summary: New York City is blinding with its lights, and checkered tiles of ice cream parlors soak up remorse and sirens. But they find something other than city pollution in one another.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually something written for school - but i ended up liking it so much and now it's here! this is also a spin-off of a much larger fic i am working on, so this is _very_ exciting for me. 
> 
> thank you for reading, hopefully, you'll enjoy~

The weather was chilled, but the ice cream was still melting.

Rain drops, Chanyeol was always told, were a sign of God crying, tears plummeting down through the fog of clouds and factory pollution, mixing with the grief of the city, the greed that sat on the fingertips of many that dreamt of their pockets sagging with coins, dreamt of their wallets overflowing with green paper.

He believed it was shameful how children would run through the streets, soiling their socks and stomping through the higher-powers tears, like a game; laughing and cleaning their grime-filth shoes with the tears that could heal wounds. But, then again, he didn’t blame them. Not when the so-called _God_ was letting them all suffer and yearn, become mouth-watering, thunder-stomach, poor men that just needed a few more coins, a few more strips of paper to feel less hungry, sated. To live a little easier.

Maybe men on earth didn’t deserve a greater power, broke too many covenants like men broke bones in the factories; often. Like how often women broke down in sobs, shakes of the shoulders and a rattle of the spine. How children slipped, fell and scraped their knees using rainfall to wash it up, biting their lips to suffocate the sounds of hurt.

The world was unfaithful, and so were husbands to wives, as pretty women just needing the money, -needing to _survive_ \- pulled at the crooked ties of menfolk that has wives that were too tired, too occupied by children and their sticky hands.

Alcohol was a refuge, even if it meant making it in the tub, sucking it down like a car does with gasoline. Sometimes it meant poisoning, the failure of the body, eyes that never opened after they closed. No one minded, really - not when there wasn’t much to look at, anyways.

Chanyeol believed the rain used to be pretty - back when the sun broke through man-made mistakes.

“Zitao, can we go somewhere?” Chanyeol says it with a small muffle, his chin resting on his fist, leaning over the counter and staring out the window.

There’s a disgruntled noise from around the open door to the back of the shop, “Go somewhere?”

“Yeah. Somewhere.”

Zitao rounds the corner, with a large ice cream tub between his arms. His tanned arms link around it, and meet with a forefinger to forefinger, his calluses twinkling in the dull, yellow flickering light of the ice cream parlor. His face is twisted, and his nose carries soft wrinkles all while his mouth is held between two ivory structures; _pretty_. Chanyeol turns from the melancholic, God-forsaken scene out of the window and turns to Zitao, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Do you need help?” Chanyeol hums, blinking slowly.

Zitao huffs out a sound, shakes his head. His black hair, all feather like and inky, flaps on his forehead. Chanyeol’s mouth pulls more, makes his teeth say hello to ugly store lights. “No. I’m _fine._ ”

“Okay,” Chanyeol says, but still moving to open the ice cream freezer door. He leans over to pull out the close to empty bucket of chocolate ice cream that sits flimsy in its spot. Zitao protests in Chinese under his breath, and Chanyeol knows he’s cursing at him, complaining about something. He still smiles.

Zitao sets it in with a small grunt, “what is this about you wanting to go somewhere, slacker?” Chanyeol doesn't even blink at the nickname, even if it's supposed to bite - it's dull.

“I’m bored.” Chanyeol states.

Zitao scoffs. “Aren’t you always? Unless you’re dancing or making a mess.” He dusts his palms on his apron, and begins to rub them, needing heat to warm his freezing hands. “Anyways, it’s _raining_ , can’t you see?”

Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrow. “‘Course I can!” He throws out a hand to slap it across Zitao’s shoulder, who just hisses back at him and pushes his large, _warm_ hand away. “Can’t we just go get bread, or soup or something? I’ve never seen you leave this parlor.”

“ _God_ , you slacker - maybe because my house is the second level?”

“Doesn’t mean you have to stay at home all the time. There’s more to see than checkered tile floors and your neverending book collection.” Chanyeol says solemnly, moving to watch children risk getting colds as they trample through puddles, cheeks flushed and plush. Chanyeol predicts their noses will soon be dripping and tinted pink; but, it was all worth it.

“My books are great.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t. I just said there is _more_.” Chanyeol turns again, leans against the counter and looks at Zitao. “There _is_ more, Zitao. Those fantasies you read, sometimes real life is just as amazing.”

Zitao looks back at him, with his hollow eyes, and his sharp cheekbones, all shadow followed and skeleton looking. He holds a stare, even if his pupils shake, and Chanyeol can’t help but grin, when Zitao huffs, groans, and whacks Chanyeol across the head. “You’re paying, you bastard.”

Chanyeol swears he sees something, just then. And it’s a mixture of the weather and a spark of lightning in Zitao’s black eyes. _Zitao’s lights_.

Zitao’s nose gets red too fast, as it cherries and runs like the children on the street, his hand -still cold- coming up often to finger at it, wipe away snot and sniffle. He continues to groan deep in his throat, because he never really wanted to come out in the first place.

Chanyeol thinks it's pretty, the contrast of pink against tan skin, black hair, black eyes. The contrast of calloused and soft. How Zitao would never admit to it, but is rather like that on the inside, too.

Chanyeol buys them soup, bread and coffee, and Zitao can hardly hold the cup of coffee still in his hands, palms still carrying frost of the ice cream tub. Still supporting the cold of his shoulders - distant, solitude.

Chanyeol thinks that Zitao fits too well into the scenery that is their city - the Great Depression in the sin-fogged capital, NYC. You can find the pollution floating in the black of Zitao’s eyes, or the crack in his words because his father smoked ever since he was young. You can find the wailing sirens in his tears, the shake of his fingers when Zitao’s father walks in, potbellied and scratching at his neck with a white stick of cancer in his mouth. The people are in his job, laced under his nails. And he pulls the small amount of _friendly_ the city has between his teeth, lifts his tongue and welcomes new customers.

The sirens don’t come as often with Zitao as they do with the city though - Zitao would never show the red and blue lights that cry behind his eyes.

He deserved better, Chanyeol thought. Deserved the laughter of children in his shoulders, to ease the load he carries that never seems to leave, the weight that is his, his father's, his customer's, Chanyeol's, Minseok's, the boy's next door, the three orphans', _everyone's_. Zitao cares too much, more than he would like to admit, but he won’t let anyone care for him back, and that’s because he kicked the cities mothers from his blood, kicked the remembrance of his own mother from his brain.

Zitao was broken, and maybe Chanyeol was a bit too, but Chanyeol would cut his fingers, bruise his knuckles, all for the kid with empty eyes. Broken people haven’t helped the broken city, but Chanyeol would prove that wrong.

“Taste good?” Chanyeol hums around the spoon pushed into his mouth. His soup had chilled just a tad, but he can’t be upset - he couldn’t stop watching Zitao.

Zitao nods frantically, his hands still quivering a tad, all bony shakes. “Yeah, really good.” His mouth quirks, and Chanyeol’s widens. “I would ask you the same thing, but you’ve hardly looked away from me, you dead hoofer.”

Chanyeol sips on his drink, coughs on it, eyes fluttering. He looks up at Zitao who is now smiling - all teeth and spread pink mouth - sipping his coffee with small sounds. “I-I was n-not!”

“You’re stuttering.” Zitao hums, waving his spoon in the air.

And Chanyeol laughs. It bubbles from his mouth and pops in the air, making Zitao flinch but laugh along, all the same. “You idiot, I can’t help that…”

Zitao laughs a bit, and Chanyeol does so as well, watching him until he feels his cheeks redden, betray his cool exterior. And Zitao falls from his own laugh shortly after, eyelashes softly grazing his eyebags, making them more delicate than the harsh purple and blue hammocks that hang constant.

“I didn’t say I _minded_ it, slacker.” Zitao says it quiet, but intended for Chanyeol to hear.

Chanyeol looks up, and Zitao has cheeks to match his own, and a small flicker of twinkle lights flicker in his eyes. Chanyeol looks outside quickly, and no lights sparkle. He smiles. _Zitao’s lights_. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to S and T. 
> 
> note: dead hoofer is a bad dancer


End file.
